When I went to Cal for undergrad the first place I lived in was a co-op in the north side of Berkeley called Casa Z. It was $250/month and all I had to do was contribute 10 hours a week in the kitchen washing dishes. In return I got a room with bi-polar junior who wasn’t sure if she was tweaker or a born again Christian. For an undergrad, this was a sweet deal….. financially speaking. Until you realized what kind of place Casa Z was. Nasty concrete building that barely could be described as sanitry would be one decent description. There were several times in the year that I lived there where the city closed off the kitchen because it was deemed a serious health risk. (This included yellow tape and a sign with skull and cross bones if you were completely stupid and couldn’t read). And to this day, I can’t eat anything with curry because of Casa Z. Don’t ask.

Recently a neighborhing co-op called Cloyne that Casa Z was affiliated with was in the news due to students becoming very ill from eating bad brownies. Frankly I agree with the attorney. They weren’t ill. They were wasted. You have to be goddamn blind and be constantly sick with the flu not to notice what type of place this co-op was. The air is thick with marijuana smoke and patchouli. Everyone knows you go to Cloyne to get high. All the good parties are there and you’re guaranteed some sort of substance when you walk through the door. Whether you want to smoke it or eat it, you have to appreciate the options Cloyne offered. They had it all.

I remember a friend of mine who lived in Casa Z with me was working on the effects of ecstasy and trance music. He was trying to find candidates for his study and didn’t want to ask anyone in our house as he worried it might ruin the study. So we sat there thinking, where would we go for a group of young people with varying experience with drugs who would jump at the chance of taking free drugs and didn’t involve alot of walking on our part? Simple. Walk 5 minutes north and knock on Cloyne’s doors.